A Democratic congressman weighing a 2020 presidential campaign has some ideas about how his party can better compete in closely contested states that Republicans have begun to control.

FILE – In this May 24, 2017, file photo Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad speaks before he resigns at the Statehouse in Des Moines, Iowa. Branstad will become U.S. Ambassador to China. In less than a decade, Iowa Democrats have withered, from in-charge to almost irrelevant. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall, Pool)

Ohio Rep. Tim Ryan is in Iowa, as the keynote speaker at a Democratic Party picnic in Des Moines on Saturday. He is urging his party to present a simple, economic message that appeals across race, religion and region.

He says “it starts with letting these working-class people know that we see them, we hear them and we know what they are going through, and we have a plan.”

Illinois Rep. Cheri Bustos and Massachusetts Rep. Seth Moulton are also speaking at the Polk County Democratic Party picnic.

As in Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin, where Trump also won, Democrats in Iowa have been overtaken by Republicans in Congress and the statehouse.

This is Ryan’s second trip to Iowa this year. Iowa is scheduled to hold the leadoff presidential caucuses in 2020.

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In less than a decade, Iowa Democrats have gone from being in charge to almost irrelevant.

Democrats sent progressive Tom Harkin to the Senate for 30 years and they twice delivered the state for Barack Obama.

Today, Democrats are powerless in the House, Senate and Iowa Statehouse, and they’re still stunned by President Donald Trump’s solid Iowa victory last year.

It may be a familiar story across the upper Midwest. But the pressure on Iowa Democrats to recoup the working-class voters who marched with Trump is more intense.

That’s because they’re charged with setting the tone in a little more than two years for the party’s presidential nomination.